Making Conversation
by CyberneticHermit
Summary: A short (AU) fic based on the idea that Molly and Lilly could have been the figures on the hill.


**A/N: Obviously Season 2 is out and we know who the figures on the hill actually were, but I thought this was a pretty fun story to write anyway. Enjoy!**

"Get _back _here!" echoed the growl of the taller woman across the plain. A few yards ahead, the target recipient of those words marched on, undaunted, seemingly ready to charge through the field like she had never been spoken to. It had only been a little while of them carrying on like this, but Lilly was already getting tired of watching the back of the other woman's head bob unresponsively across the countryside in front of her.

"_Molly!_" she hissed, projecting her voice so there was no plausible way the blonde could miss that her name had been called. "Are you listening? I said stop!"

This time, Molly did stop, if only to pivot so that she was facing Lilly and roll her eyes.

"What?" she barked impatiently, face unreadable behind her particle mask. "Did you wanna lead, _again_?"

"I want you to _slow the fuck down_ and be careful. We don't know what could be out here," Lilly reprimanded her.

Molly's exasperated sigh was audible, "Yeah, yeah, I got it." She turned to lead again, resuming, much to Lilly's irritation, the exact same pace as before. The woman grit her teeth, deciding to say nothing more. Her eyes warily scanned their surroundings, taking a reading of everything out to the horizon in every direction she was able to see. "We really shouldn't be out in the open like this."

"We'll be fine," came Molly's annoyingly confident reply.

"What makes you so sure?"

"Look around. Do you _see_ any geeks, anywhere? Do you see any _anything_, anywhere?"

Lilly let her mental radar scan the landscape again. "No..." she answered after a moment of careful consideration.

"There you go," Molly answered simply.

Lilly sniffed internally at this response, and then retired to her own thoughts. They trudged on through the brush, silently. Lilly found herself studying Molly, curiously, wondering how the other woman had ended up in this area. They hadn't spoken much since encountering each other on a path a few miles back, and what little verbal interaction they'd had had been used to establish motives and a truce, which they'd needed to do quickly. Nothing else had been said. Lilly thought it wise to ask the other woman some questions, to find out a little more about her, but she didn't know exactly where to start.

She finally spoke up with a simple inquiry, "Why do you call them that?"

It took Molly a second to reply, "What?"

"_Geeks_?" Lilly emphasized. "That's what you call walkers."

"Yeah?"

"Why?"

Molly stopped walking and cast a mildly irritated glance over her shoulder before answering. "Uh... Because that's what they called 'em where I come from?"

"Oh," Lilly replied softly.

"Yeah, so..."

"Where was that?"

Molly turned around and placed a hand on her hip, shifting her posture so as to place all the weight on one side of her body. "Why so chatty all of a sudden? Wasn't it you who was so worried about attracting walkers just a second ago?"

Lilly noticed she had carefully avoided using the word 'geeks' this time. "What? You can't tell me where you come from?" Lilly replied with arched eyebrows, not planning to back down.

"I told you when we met, remember?"

"I do. You pointed. You didn't give an actual location."

Molly considered this for a second, then snorted and rolled her eyes, "Fine. Fucking _Savannah_... satisfied?"

"For the moment," Lilly answered calmly.

Molly didn't wait to hear what else she might have had to say. The blonde swiftly turned and resumed walking at what seemed to be twice her earlier pace.

"So, they call them 'geeks' in Savannah, huh?" Lilly proceeded.

Molly's only answer was a distinctly aggravated-sounding and dismissive, "Yup."

Lilly waited a second, then with a wrinkled nose, asked, "So how _did _you survive this long, anyway?"

That got Molly to stop. She turned around so that she was facing Lilly, eyes narrowed. "You know what? Why don't _you_ lead?" the blonde spit out.

A tiny smirk wormed its way onto Lilly's face. "All right," she said. She moved ahead of Molly, ignoring the other woman's glare.

"You still back there?" Lilly called out after a few paces, looking over her shoulder a little. It had occurred to her that the other woman might try to attack her when she crossed in front of her to take point, and when that hadn't happened and she'd started walking while Molly had gone along without complaint, it occurred to her that she might also be planning to ditch her.

"Yeah, I'm _here_," Molly issued. From over her shoulder, Lilly could just see the corner of her face, eye peeking out under hood and blonde fringe. "Just keep moving, yeah?" Lilly couldn't really tell with her speech muffled behind the mask, but she thought she sounded tired.

Lilly turned around and strode, determined, at a steady rate, all the while keeping an ear on Molly's movements in case she had an apparent change of heart.

"Holy shit," Molly suddenly blurted out, making the blood stop up in Lilly's veins.

Lilly froze in a hunched over position. Her first instinct was to scan the horizon for something she didn't end up seeing, and when she turned around to face Molly in hopes of tracking her gaze, she aggravatingly found the woman to be staring right back at her.

"What?" Lilly hissed, in a mixture of confusion, desperation, and anger.

Molly's eyes went blank, and then the muscles around them shifted and tugged at the folds of her eyes in such a way that Lilly could tell she was grinning. "I was just gonna say, I can see why you kept asking so many questions. Playing caboose back here is boring as shit."

Lilly stayed in the hunched over posture for a second, in stunned disbelief, she glanced around before she let her arms drop to her sides and replied with a simple, dull, "Fuck you."

The slight quivering vibrations in Molly's chest told Lilly that she found this funny, something Lilly was not prepared to deal with.

"I thought we were in trouble," she growled, graveness undercutting her tone.

Molly shrugged, "Yeah, well, we're not." When Lilly's glare stayed on her, she added, "What's your deal, anyway?"

"I'm trying to _survive_ out here, excuse me _if I don't have a sense of humor about it_..."

All traces of the smile faded from Molly's face. "That's not what I meant," she returned, standing steadfast. She sighed, loudly, and put two fingers up to pinch the skin between her eyes. "I... look... you asked me about my shit, didn't you?" She rocked forward on the balls of her feet and put her hands on her hips, at which point Lilly turned away and resumed walking. The blonde's voice came drifting to her, getting louder,"'Think it's only fair that you return the favor."

Lilly paused, took a moment to think, then answered, "Fine." She started walking again.

Lilly could hear Molly's footsteps resume their pace behind her. "So you said you were coming from Macon?"

"Yes..."

"Where were you holed up?"

Lilly didn't waste much time in answering, "A motor lodge. Near the highway."

"How was it?" was the next inquiry. "Pretty solid?"

"It held up for three months," Lilly answered.

Her words had had a pointedness to them, though Lilly hadn't really meant it. Molly fell silent for a moment, evidently contemplating the underlying meaning in what she had said. Lilly thought she was probably trying to figure out if there was a safe place in Macon, while she knew that there was none. There was also the past tense to contend with in the answer, as it barely concealed a story of betrayal and disaster which, as they spoke, came up fresh in Lilly's mind and ate away at her core.

"You alone?" Molly attempted. "Or did you have a group?"

Lilly swallowed. She allowed herself a solemn moment, and then answered, "a group."

"You lose a lot of people?"

Lilly didn't answer.

There was a chill in the air that might have been felt or imagined before Molly cleared her throat, and her voice got softer. "Right..." she almost-nervously-laughed, "What am I talking about?"

Lilly kept moving.

"I... never was a fan of groups..." Molly offered.

Lilly could only nod, and keep moving in a straight line across the plain, but she slowed her pace considerably. It was the tiny note of pain and hints of something else present in Molly's speech that set her on edge.

"I..." she began, before her attention was drawn to the right side. She abruptly came to a halt. "Holy shit..."

"Nice try," chided Molly, before she, too, caught sight of the same thing.

They stopped moving and stood side-by-side, staring off across the plain to a spot on the horizon where a tiny -nearly indistinguishable, other than the fact that it seemed to be human- figure stood sequestered up against a log. As they watched, it watched them back.

There was a hitch in Molly's breath as she inhaled.

Lilly kept a careful eye on it.

"Is that what I think it is?"

Lilly couldn't answer.


End file.
